Director's Comments

The idea for the film began in an Athens taverna during an argument I was having with Andreas Staikos a Greek playwright, and a friend of Mary Koutsouri, who worked for Greek Television, and whom I had known for several years. Andreas insisted that Lord Elgin, with an armed contingent of British soldiers, waved a loaded pistol at a handful of cowering Greeks, whom he forced to hand over 'the marbles'. I felt this was historically inaccurate and rather improbable, and would check the facts and let him know.

There had already been published a couple of books on the subject, which proved that the story was slightly sinister and far more complex than Andreas thought, but what really surprised me during my researches was that much of the correspondence between the seventh Earl of Elgin and his wife Mary, and the team he took with him to Athens, had already been published in 1926.

It was Brian Clark who suggested that by having the leading actors reading the letters in a dubbing-suite, modern opinions and comments on the 'Elgin affair' could be made at the same time as hearing the opinions of people who were involved at the time two centuries ago.

These letters clearly show what Elgin had in mind concerning Greek antiquities, when he was offered the post of Ambassador in Constantinople, but it was the Rev.Philip Hunt, Elgin's chaplain, who sailed with them from Portsmouth in 1799, who eventually persuaded Elgin to take the actual sculptures, rather than just copy them as he had intended (and indeed what the so-called 'Firman' or 'Turkish permission', had implied).

Two extracts from Hunt's letters to Elgin are very clear on his rapacious instincts in referring to the Erectheum and the 'Lion's gate' in Mycenae:-

"My Lord, the Cariatids that support it, and the rich ornaments of its cornice and ceiling, are now open to the day. If your Lordship would come here in a large Man of War that beautiful little model of ancient art might be transported wholly to England"

Later, Elgin did in fact take a Caryatid, leaving a roughly made stone prop to support the temple in its place. It is now in the British Museum, which returned a plaster copy back to Greece when I was making the film, together with a bill for over £30,000!

In the foreground Stelios Triandis, one of the permanent sculptors on the Acropolis, unpacks the British Museum's copy of the Caryatid which Elgin took back to England in 1802

 
Hunt writes to Elgin again:-

"We made a short excursion to the famous city of Mycenae….. as well as two colossal lions in bas-relief over the gate way; and which still remain in their original situation. The block on which they are sculptured is too gigantic, and too distant from the sea to give any hopes of being able to obtain so renowned a monument"

Elgin never did manage to take the Lion's Gate, because it was, as Hunt said, too far from the sea! But in 1802 he wrote from Constantinople to Lusieri his man in Athens, who was working on the Parthenon:-

"Sir, Your letter of May 16th and the news which Mr Hunt has brought us from Athens, have received my most serious attention….. Besides the general work it would be very essential that the Formatori should be able to take away exact models of little ornaments, or detached pieces if any are found… Balestra has with him several drawings of my house in Scotland, and some plans of the site on which it is intended to build here. This building is a subject that occupies me greatly. The Hall is intended to be adorned with columns …. would it be better to get some white columns worked in this country, in order to send them by sea to my house?

You do not need any prompting from me to know the value that is attached to a sculptured marble, or historic piece.

Farewell Sir, keep well, and be assured of my esteem.

Elgin 

Clearly Elgin does not appear to think he has permission to dismantle the temple, because he says:- "be able to take away exact models of little ornaments, or detached pieces if any are found…"

The letters also make clear that Elgin's booty was to adorn 'Broom Hall' in Scotland, a new stately home about which he was obsessed and which he was building to impress his wife, the heiress Mary Nisbet. The idea of selling the 'marbles' to the British nation only occurred to him after he returned to England, greatly impoverished by the expense of the enterprise and in particular by having to get the 'marbles' up from the bottom of the sea from the wreck of his brig 'The Mentor', which had sunk off  the island of Cerigo (modern Kythera) in the southern Peloponnese.  On hearing this news Elgin immediately wrote to the consul of the island, and in this letter, which we discovered in the Benaki Museum in Athens, he seems remarkably reticent about the value of his marble cargo, …..

Lord Elgin's original letter about the sinking of his 'stones' in the Peloponnese

Drowning the poor old marbles, and then having them scrubbed, (see Press) couldn't have done them much good, and to say (as many have) that the Greeks cannot look after their own antiquities is laughable, especially now that a new museum has been built to house these magnificent sculptures in Athens, their rightful home and city of origin.

 
….."she had on board a quantity of boxes with stones, of no value of themselves: but of great consequence for me to secure…."

For further information contact:

www.parthenoninternational.org/members/marblesreunited

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